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“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to effectively dismiss what is arguably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his contempt for journalists, for the media – and for the truth.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissive attitude of the killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a recent assessment had orchestrated the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to conclude the homicide – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the late Khashoggi was sedated and dismembered – was signed off at the top echelons. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a brief period, governments were in agreement in their criticism of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US enacted penalties and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it stopped short of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the regime had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the presidential residence was worse than could have been anticipated. Not only did Trump honor Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. Prince Mohammed, Trump claimed when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own spy agencies concluded previously. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals disliked that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a new and abject low for a leader who has made little secret of his contempt for the facts – or for the press. He has defamed reporters (he called ABC news, whose journalist asked the inquiry about the journalist at the media event “false information”), berated them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his connection with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), taken legal action against news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use terminology of his preference, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has created an atmosphere in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the United States, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the deadliest year on record for journalists in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been tracking this information: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has created a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are actually able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

In no place is this clearer than in Israel, which is accountable for the deaths of more than 200 media workers in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The impact on the public is deep. Targeting reporters are attacks on the truth. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our freedom to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its yearly global journalism honors. My message at the event is the same as my message for Trump: such events may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they cease.